The Secret Lives of Games

Latest Episodes:

94: Learning to Unclench with Ben Esposito (Neon White) Jul 08, 2022

Show notes

Ben Esposito (Donut County, What Remains of Edith Finch) joins us to talk about his heavenly new card-powered, speedrunning FPS Neon White. We discuss making tight designs by keeping things loose, what a "career" of indie games feels like, and making games u wish 2 see on the Dreamcast.

Show notes:

Sonic Dreams Collection

Perfect Stride

CRAP! No One Loves Me

Room of 1000 Snakes

Arcane Kids manifesto

93: Cheating Depth with Card Shark Jun 24, 2022

Show notes

Card Shark creators Arnaud De Bock of Nerial (Reigns) and Nicolai Troshinsky join us to discuss their innovative new adventure game about cheating. We discuss its filmic inspirations, the narrative progression of chaining tricks, and designing a game loop of teaching and testing.

Show notes:

The Expert at the Card Table

Gambling Sleight of Hand - Steve Forte

The Magic Castle

92: Untangling Language with Knotwords Jun 10, 2022

Show notes

Knotwords creators Jack Schlesinger and our own Zach Gage chat to us about their elegant new logic puzzle word game. We discuss "cracking" the game design they'd been chasing forever, and how they created the puzzle/word generator that makes it great.

Show notes:

Two Not Touch puzzles

This episode edited by Dylan Shumway, thanks Dylan!

91: Finding Poetry in Geometry with Mahdi Bahrami (Tandis) May 27, 2022

Show notes

Mahdi Bahrami joins us to discuss his beautiful, mind-bending new puzzle game Tandis. We discuss teaching complex geometry concepts without any numbers, poetry as playtesting, and drawing a line through Mahdi's math-inspired oeuvre.

Show notes:

ArsTechnica Tandis review

Waldorf Education

Mercator Projection

90: Rethinking Reality with Tender Claws (The Under Presents) May 13, 2022

Show notes

Tender Claws' Samantha Gorman and Danny Cannizzazo join us - alongside guest co-host Star St. Germain - to discuss their singular immersive theater experience The Under, creating an enriching social space in VR, and gameplay as an act of rebellion.

Show notes:

Tender Claws

The Under

Virtual Virtual Reality

Star St. Germain

Tumball

Piehole

The Severance Theory: Welcome to Respite

Royal Shakespeare Company's Dream

Talk 'n Play

The Invention of Morel

Uncle Roy All Around You

Janet Cardiff

Mary Sweeney

Walkabout Mini Golf

Into the Depths: Super Mario World - Bonus Episode! Apr 29, 2022

Show notes

Surprise! In the spirit of SMW's bonus worlds, we're back with a Special episode to cap off our deep-dive miniseries, as previous Into the Depths guests Stephanie Boluk and Patrick LeMieux take us on a tour of some of the coolest SMW ephemera yet!

Show notes:

Stephanie Boluk

Patrick LeMieux

Tons of links this week, so please check out this great syllabus that Patrick put together for us!

Into the Depths: Super Mario World - Part 5 Apr 15, 2022

Show notes

In the fifth - and final! - installment of our Super Mario World deep-dive miniseries, streamer/speedrunner Grand POOBear joins us to discuss the uncanny valley of SMW Remade From Memory, and the masterful Super 'Sonic Saves the World' World romhack by the mysterious 'Maddy, allegedly'.

Show Notes:

GrandPOOBear

The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe

DougDoug

SMW Remade From Memory

Super 'Sonic Saves the World' World

Grand Poo World 2

Invictus SMW romhack

Luminescent SMW romhack

Celeste.smc

Spelunky 2 randomizer

Celeste: Farewell

Into the Depths: Super Mario World - Part 4 Apr 01, 2022

Show notes

In the fourth installment of our Super Mario World deep-dive miniseries, Davey Wreden (The Stanley Parable) joins us to discuss the infamous Star and Special worlds, and walk us through the ever-evolving, often hilarious culture of Kaizo Mario.

Show notes:

Davey Wreden

The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe

The Beginner's Guide

Ivy Road

Elden Ring VICE article

The Japanese names for the Special courses

Asshole Mario Stage 1

Asshole Mario Stage 10

Asshole Mario 2 Stage 9

Claustrophobia Kaizo hack

Icing (game)

The Complete History of Kaizo Mario

Homework for next episode:

SMW Remade From Memory

Sonic Saves the World played by Grand POOBear

Into the Depths: Super Mario World - Part 3 Mar 18, 2022

Show notes

In the third installment of our Super Mario World deep-dive miniseries, David Hellman (Braid) joins us to discuss the aesthetics of SMW, touch on its recent widescreen mod, and suffer through the game's worst world and level (while savoring the interesting bits).

Show notes:

David Hellman

Braid: Anniversay Edition

Satoru Iwata tribute

The eyes on question mark blocks

Mario shades of red

SMW widescreen mod

SMW jazz fusion album

Homework for next episode:

Star World

Special World

Watch some Kaizo/Asshole Mario World

89: Elden Ring roundtable with Jake Kazdal (17-Bit) Mar 11, 2022

Show notes

Our friend Jake Kazdal (17-Bit) joins us for a (spoiler-free!) roundtable discussion of Elden Ring, in which we compare our experiences in FromSoftware's latest monsterpiece, consider the inseparable nature of its community, and deliberate its bolder design decisions.

Show notes:

Nick's home invasion thread

Clint Hocking on the virtues of exploration

Lord of the Rings (films)

Assassin's Creed Odyssey: Discovery Tour

There's no such thing as an Elden Ring cheese

Halo Infinite